Document Type
Article
Department/Program
Applied Science
Journal Title
Physical Review B
Pub Date
2009
Volume
79
Issue
10
Abstract
We report on the time evolution of mass transport upon annealing nonequilibrium Fe-Pt nanocomposite films, leading to nucleation of L1(0) chemically ordered phase. The nonequilibrium nanocomposite films were fabricated by applying Fe(+) ion implantation to epitaxial Pt films grown on (001) MgO substrates, yielding Fe nanoclusters embedded in a Pt matrix at a tailored penetration depth. Time-resolved x-ray diffraction studies were carried out using synchrotron radiation, allowing determination of the activation energy for nucleation of the FePt L1(0) phase within the segregated nanoclusters during annealing. The growth of the segregated L1(0) ordered phase was modeled using ideal grain-size law and found to be dominated by strain-driven surface nucleation. The activation energies were found to correlate with the nanocluster size. Magnetic characterization of selected annealed samples indicates perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with high coercive field coincident with high value of the chemical order parameter of the ordered phase within the magnetic nanoclusters.
Recommended Citation
Clavero, C.; Lukaszew, R. A.; Garcia-Martin, J. M.; Cebollada, A.; Skuza, J. R.; and Walko, D. A., Order and phase nucleation in nonequilibrium nanocomposite Fe-Pt thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (2009). Physical Review B, 79(10).
10.1103/PhysRevB.79.104436
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.79.104436
